The present invention relates to the internet and more particularly to browsers that are used to display web pages obtained from the internet.
There are numerous commercially available programs called xe2x80x9cbrowsersxe2x80x9d that facilitate accessing and displaying data. The two leading commercially available browsers are the xe2x80x9cNetscape Communicatorxe2x80x9d which is distributed by Netscape Corporation of Mountain View, Calif. and the xe2x80x9cInternet Explorerxe2x80x9d browser that is distributed by Microsoft corporation of Redmond, Wash.
Browsers allow one to utilize the internet to access web pages located at remote sites. A browser displays web pages in a window on a display device. The web pages that are displayed can contain both text and images.
Technology called stenography had been developed which allows one to store digital data in an image. Such data is frequently termed a xe2x80x9cdigital watermarkxe2x80x9d. The digital data is not visible when an image containing such data is displayed with a conventional browser; however, the image can be passed through a special program which can detect and read the hidden data. Systems for storing digital data in images and for then reading such data from the images are for example shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,636,292 and in U.S. Pat. No. 5,748,783. Such technology is also discussed in the xe2x80x9cCommunications of the ACMxe2x80x9d published July 1998 Vol. 41. No. 7 pages 31 to 77.
The present invention provides programs which works with a browser to provide functions that are not performed by prior programs. A typical web page displayed by a browser contains several images. With a conventional browser, a user can not visually determine if any of the images displayed on a web page contain a watermark.
The present invention is an adjunct to a convention browser which displays web pages that contain images. With the present invention a special visual indicia is placed on images which contain a digital watermark so that a user can know that the image contains hidden watermark data. By clicking on the indicia which is placed on the image, the user will be linked to the web page identified by the watermark data hidden in the image. Such a link will be established without the web page designer having to include a tag in the web page which displays the original image. The present invention also opens a separate widow which contains a thumbnail of each image in a web page. If a user right clicks on one of the thumbnails in this window the image will be added to a list of images in a special image bookmark file. When a user opens the bookmark web page, thumbnails of all the stored images in the bookmark file are displayed. A user can recall the web page which originally contained the image by clicking on the thumbnail.